On the universality of what is not : the apophatic turn in critical thinking / William Franke.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Franke, William, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Negative theology.

Philosophy and religion.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (451 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, [2020]

Summary:

Branching out from his earlier works providing a history and a theory of apophatic thinking, William Franke's newest book pursues applications across a variety of communicative media, historical periods, geographical regions, and academic disciplines-moving from the literary humanities and cultural theory and politics to more empirical fields such as historical anthropology, evolutionary biology, and cognitive science. On the Universality of What Is Not: The Apophatic Turn in Critical Thinking is an original philosophical reflection that shows how intransigent deadlocks debated in each of these arenas can be broken through thanks to the uncanny insights of apophatic vision. Leveraging Franke's distinctive method of philosophical, religious, and literary thinking and practice, On the Universality of What Is Not proposes a radically unsettling approach to answering (or suspending) perennial questions of philosophy and religion, as well as to dealing with some of our most pressing dilemmas at present at the university and in the socio-political sphere. In a style of exposition that is as lucid as it is poetic, deep-rooted tensions between alterity and equality in all these areas are exposed and transcended.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Preface: Position, Purpose, and Structure of the Work

Acknowledgments

Part I. Thinking Theologically and the Apophatic

One Introduction: Apophatic Thinking and Its Applications

Between Exhaustion and Explosion

Two Outbound Reflection: Unsaying Theology in the Name of All

Part II. The New Apophatic Universalism

Three Apophatic Mysticism as Practical Philosophy: Nicholas of Cusa and the Applications of Ignorance

Four Contemporary Atheist Philosophers and St. Paul's Revolutionary Political Theology: A Genealogy of the New Universalism

Part III. Comparative Philosophies of Culture

Five Cosmopolitan Conviviality and Negative Theology: Europe's Vocation to Universalism

Six Except Asia: Agamben's Logic of Exception and Its Apophatic Roots and Offshoots

Part IV. Cross-Cultural and Transhistorical Interdisciplinarity

Seven Liberal Arts Education Worldwide Unlimited Inc.: The Unspeakable Basis of Comparative Humanities

Eight Apophasis and the Axial Age: Transcendent Origins of Critical Consciousness

Part V. Emergences in Literary and Cultural Theory

Nine The Canon Question and the Value of Theory: Toward a New (Non)Concept of Universality

Ten World Literature: A Means or a Menace to the Encounter with the Other?

Part VI. Critical Consciousness and Cognitive Science

Eleven Postmodern Identity Politics and the Social Tyranny of the Definable

Twelve Cognitive Universality between Science and the Humanities

Concluding Elucidation: On the Extension and Intension of "Apophasis."

Appendix: Analytic Table of Contents

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780268108847

0268108846

9780268108830

0268108838

OCLC:

1199056046